Notes on Our First Fundraising Event

First Parish in Bedford is a Unitarian Universalist church that looks as quintessentially new England as you can get. This was the site of the Emergence Project’s first benefit event involving a storytelling event with global visionary leader James O’Dea. When Annette and I first pulled up to the church and noticed a quote posted outside the church from Leslie Marmon Silko that said “You haven’t got anything if you haven’t got the stories”, it seemed to be a nicely served up validation that we were at the right place in the right time.

That evening James took attendees through an evening of myth-weaving and soul journeying following the theme of the “collective story of our time”. His approach was to keep expanding the narrative frame of reference in both space and time and then to find one’s own place in the meta-framework that evolved, in essence, to reconnect archetypal identity as a culture with that of the individual in the larger context of upheaval and evolution now underway.

The high point of the evening was James taking the group through an amazing process of engagement by exploring one of the deep mythologies of the Kalahari, an indigenous tribe from South Africa, whose territory includes, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. The Kalahari were also featured in the movie “The Gods Must Be Crazy”. The process was one of participatory mythic recreation involving the story of a prescient mantis who mission was to warn other living intelligences of the coming of the “all devourer”. All in all, a great night of experential storytelling. We also had a silent auction including a copy of Mysteries of 2012 which James contributed to; my own book Digital Mythologies; and two of Annette’s excellent paintings.

Some old friends and supporters showed up for the event including Kathleen Byrnes, who was an very instrumental in making our June conference a success, a student of Mayan wisdomkeeper Barbara Hand Clow. There were some interesting new faces as well. Jeff Ferrannini, producer and host for Planetary Spirit radio also showed up. After the event, a number of folks hung out during the rest of the evening to discuss anything and everything and have a few glasses of wine. All in all, a great night.